The name “Dundee” first occurs in writing in a deed of gift, dated about A.D. 1200, by David, the younger brother of William the Lion, making the place a royal burg. Later it received charters from Robert the Bruce and the Scottish kings. Charles I finally granted the city its great charter. In the war of independence, when the Scots took up arms against England, Dundee was prominent. William Wallace, educated here, slew the son of the English constable in 1291, for which deed he was outlawed. The castle, which stood until some time after the Commonwealth, but of which there is to-day hardly a trace, was repeatedly besieged and captured. In Dundee’s coat of arms are two “wyverns,” griffins, or “dragons,” with wings addorsed and with barbed tails, the latter “nowed” or knotted together--which things serve as an allegory. In the local conversation and allusions and in the modern newspaper cartoons and caricatures, the “wyverns” stand for municipal affairs and local politics. Such a well-situated port, on Scotland’s largest river, Tay, must needs be the perennial prize of contending factions and leaders. But when, after having assimilated the culture of Rome, the new struggle, which was inevitable to human progress, the Reformation, began, and the Scots thought out their own philosophy of the universe, Dundee was called “the Scottish Geneva,” because so active in spreading the new doctrines. Here, especially, Scotland’s champion, George Wishart, student and schoolmaster (1513–46), one of the earliest reformers, introduced the study of Greek and preached the Reformation doctrines. Compelled to flee to England, he went also to Switzerland. In Cambridge, he was a student in 1538. It is not known that he ever “took orders,” any more than did the apostle Paul. He travelled from town to town, making everywhere a great impression by his stirring appeals. Instead of bearing the fiery cross of the clans as of old, Wishart held up the cross of his Master. Patriotism and economics, as well as religion, were factors in the clash of ideas. Cardinal Beaton stood for ecclesiastical dependence on France, Wishart for independence. Beaton headed soldiers to make Wishart prisoner. Young John Knox attached himself to the person of the bold reformer and carried a two-handed sword before Wishart for his defence. After preaching a powerful sermon at Haddington, the evangelist was made a prisoner by the Earl of Bothwell and carried to St. Andrew’s. There, at the age of thirty-three, by the cardinal’s order, Wishart was burned at the stake in front of the castle, then the residence of the bishop. While the fire was kindling, Wishart uttered the prophecy that, within a few days his judge and murderer would lose his life. After such proceedings in the name of God, it seems hardly wonderful that the mob, which had been stirred by Wishart’s preaching, should have destroyed both the cathedral and the episcopal mansion.